I sat down much amused at my friend's earnestness and excitement, and waited patiently the end of the experiments. He was soon satisfied, and, starting up, exclaimed--
"Not hereditary in the family, I hope?" I asked. "When the attack is on you, you don't fly at your best friends?"
"Yes, I bite them! While you have been gadding about town, doing no good, here have I been making my hair turn grey by testing the various chances at roulette."
"Might I suggest," I said, "that you should vary the monotony of the roulette--_toujours des perdrix_--with a little solitaire. I can recommend that as a lively game."
"Go to Jericho!" he rather impolitely answered. "I am the working bee; you are the drone. While you were whispering absurdities into the ear of Marie I have discovered an infallible system."
"Anything to do with keeping one's temper?"
"It is a system," he said impressively, "which will break any bank."
"Is that all? That is nothing. I met three men at Baden Baden who each professed to know a different but sure method of effecting that desirable feat; but something must have gone wrong with their calculations. To number one I lent a Napoleon to make up his railway fare; number two was escorted to the frontier at the expense of the State; and the third--what did the third do? Let me see--it was something ridiculous, I know. Oh! I remember. When he had lost his last franc he frightened the ladies in the rooms by blowing out his brains! I am disappointed in you, Peter Dodd. I know your sanguine disposition, but I did think you had more sense."
"Then the secrets of the world are all used up, and there is nothing new to be discovered."
"Be serious if you can; my system has extraordinary advantages, and can be applied with equal s access to any game of chance, be it pitch-and-toss or blind hookey."
"Eureka! That is the correct exclamation, I think. Then we are to have no more flights of uncertain bills, the dread of Monday's settling is about to cease for ever, and I can promise Marie that saddle horse. Permit me, Peter, to congratulate you that you still retain a little of the verdure of your early youth, and believe in something, even if that something is only an infallible system."